


four reasons to wander

by i_was_human



Series: blurring the fact and the fiction [2]
Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Inspired by Music, Introspection, Lee Minsoo-centric, M/M, Multi, Wanderlust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: it's been sixty weeks since i saw viennaa bandage and a wide smile slapped across my facei'll pick up my hiking boots when i am readyand i'll put down my roots when i'm dead-since i saw vienna, wilbursoot
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld/Kang Dongho | D.Min/Kim Daehyun/Lee Minsoo
Series: blurring the fact and the fiction [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167329
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	four reasons to wander

**i. wanderlust**

Most people hate airports.

Most people hate places of transit, Minsoo's learned.

Most people hate trains, subway stations, airports, cars, but Minsoo loves them. He loves the possibility - the way you could go _anywhere_ , the way everything could be anything - and he only vaguely knows where he's going now, but it's enough to know that he wants to go.

He stares up at the ceiling - white tile, water-stained and cracked - and then down at the beaten-up backpack between his legs, a change of clothes sticking out of the top.

He's frugal, he supposes.

He reaches up, flips his hood up over his head. He doesn't like the looks - people stare at his haphazardly bleached hair, at the scar on his forehead, at his ratty jacket and torn-up jeans - and he leans down, resting his elbows on his knees.

Here's to hoping this country will be as great as the others.

The flight attendant calls his flight, and he grabs his bag, slinging it over his shoulders and pressing in his earbuds.

His phone's old - little more than a glorified MP3 at this point, though he doesn't need it to be anything else - and he gives the attendant a small smile as he pulls out one earbud, passing her his boarding pass and stuffing his phone in his pocket.

People hate places of transit, he thinks, because they're the line between point A and point B.

Nobody cares about the line. They just want to get to point B.

Not Minsoo, though.

He doesn't have a point B, so he loves the line all the same.

He pushes his hair back, grins as the messy strands fall back into his face.

It's a nice trip, nice plane, nice sort of way to travel and fly.

Point A to undefined, as it were.

**ii. freedom**

He ends up with a shitty old truck, somehow.

A few jobs can get you a car - who knew? Not Minsoo, that's for sure.

The paint is peeling and the windows don't crank up all the way, but Minsoo _adores it_. Adores the chipped paint and the scratches and the shitty dashboard and the lingering smell of smoke that slowly fades as he crosses more and more land. 

It's perhaps the fact that his car is so shitty that attracts his first companion.

Dongho's tall, dark, and brooding, spray paint cans sticking out of his bag and dark hair hanging in his eyes.

Minsoo adores him immediately.

It's Dongho that crouches by their door and spray-paints a myriad of colors over it, and it's Minsoo that laughs, the sun beating down on him as he lies in the bed. It's Minsoo that suggests they go to the beach, beaten-up car rattling down the highway, and it's Dongho that shrugs, a lollipop between his lips. 

Minsoo's fingers drum a rhythm on the dashboard, lips curled into a bright grin, and he stares out the windshield, squinting through the dirt and dust and grit. 

There's nothing much to see, really, but he loves seeing the next stretch of road as soon as he can.

Dongho, his beaten-up boots digging into the seat upholstery, points out that the next bit of road is just the same as this one, and Minsoo laughs, tapping a flourish on the dashboard.

What Dongho's in love with is the liberation, Minsoo learns - he's in love with the freedom of the road, not the road itself.

He's in love with the lack of a point B instead of the never-ending line.

Ah, well. They're compatible, in the end.

He tells Dongho as much, dirt-covered vans tapping against the floor of the car, and the elder laughs around his lollipop, fingers brushing against the filthy glass.

They are what they are.

**iii. impulse**

Daehyun chucks his guitar in the bed and hops in right after it, only belatedly remembering to ask for a ride.

Minsoo likes him immediately.

When he asks where Daehyun needs to go, the younger man just shrugs and replies with a flippant "nowhere in particular," and that's how their little group turns to three.

Where Minsoo roams and Dongho paints, Daehyun plays, fingers flying over his guitar strings and words placed in the sky like the brilliant stars Minsoo saw in the midwest, something only visible when there's no light at all.

That's ironic, Minsoo thinks, because Daehyun seems to provide his own light.

Daehyun fits right in with his hiking boots and torn-up jeans and ratty flannel, and he's not running from anything, but he's not chasing anything either.

He's just... along for the ride.

Minsoo can respect that.

And in the end, it's Daehyun who sings them to sleep, legs tucked under him and chipped guitar pick resting between his fingers, and it's Minsoo who points out the stars in the sky, traces constellations with his fingers and tells stories about kings and queens and spiteful gods that carry no mercy.

Daehyun laughs, says something about how _"that's not a very nice story"_ and takes a seat next to him, bleached hair - uneven like Minsoo's, with a texture of straw - shining in the dim light. 

_"You do one better,"_ Minsoo challenges, and Daehyun grins, picking up his guitar.

Daehyun is a story-teller, Minsoo learns, watching as the blond sings stories of magic and love and _happiness_. Daehyun is a story-teller with a voice of stars and a home in a shitty truck in the middle of nowhere.

Dongho returns, flicks his stick into the grass and pulls out his spray cans. Daehyun keeps singing even as the fumes rise into the air, and by the time Dongho's done, Daehyun's just finishing, the last chord ringing through the air.

It's the middle of the desert, middle of nowhere, middle of everywhere and nowhere and something and nothing and everything, and they simply _are_.

It's enough.

Always has been.

**iv. fear**

Jaewon's running from something, Minsoo knows.

Jaewon, who approaches them with a bruise bright on his face and a split lip and a manic sort of desperation in his eyes - he's running from something, and Minsoo lets him in.

He sits in the truck bed until Daehyun takes a seat next to him, the blond regaling him with stories on his guitar, and Minsoo stares at them in the cracked windshield, fingers tapping a rhythm on the dashboard as he stares at the horizon.

It's easy to make three into four when the fourth's position is _anywhere but point A_.

There's no point B for them, their existence locked forever in a transitory space. There's no destination for them, just a beat-up car, some spray paint, a guitar, and a ragged whale plush. 

Minsoo stares up at the horizon - at the road slowly appearing - and Jaewon sits next to him, sneakers tucked on the seat and arms wrapped around his ratty plush. 

_"Why do you wander?"_ he asks, and Minsoo laughs, makes some sort of quip about how that's too formal for this car - this car, with the chipped paint and cigarette smell and bags in the back. 

It is, really.

 _"Why d'ya ask?"_ he simply replies, and Jaewon shrugs, head resting against the window.

_"Don't you... don't you wanna find home?"_

Home is here, Minsoo almost says. Home is here, in this shitty truck with peeling paint and two boys asleep in the truck bed.

 _"Home is what you make of it,"_ he simply replies, and Jaewon smiles - gentle, soft, a bit crooked.

_"Can it be here?"_

Minsoo's fingers drum on the dashboard, playing along to the rhythm of a song he's long-since forgotten.

_"Why not?"_

He squints, stares out at the slowly-appearing horizon.

There's always new ground to cover.

Jaewon smiles, clutches his plush a bit tighter, and Minsoo grins, finishing his dashboard song with a flourish.

Wherever they go, they'll go together.

**Author's Note:**

> man i like this for some reason
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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